Ok, so ultimately not so brief, but here it is anyway.
The Culture Review: Summersend Festival Special EditionArticle by Gerrick
This is the third installment (and Summersend Festival Special Edition) of the Culture Review, written by me, Wintreath’s Jarl of Culture. I’ll be talking briefly about some of the contests and forum games that took place during the third annual Summersend Festival.
The Monarch’s Game Bag is a list of over 150 spare Steam keys for PC games that Wintermoot and other citizens have donated to the region over the years. While it usually serves as a reward for those citizens who perform necessary civil service duties for the region, during the Summersend Festival it also supplied rewards for those who won or participated in the many contests, forum games, spam games, and discussions. Each time someone participated in a new activity, they got a raffle ticket, which they could then use to enter into any of the three raffles to win a free Steam key – the winners of which were announced at the end of the festival. Those who won any of the contests got tokens, which could then be used to redeem Steam keys as well. All in all, over 10 games worth of tokens were given out to victors.
The Post Count Contest was started up at the beginning of the festival by Wintermoot where people could guess how many posts they thought there would be by the end of the festival (using
the Price is Right rules). Since it’d be easier to guess as time went on, submissions would only be accepted during the first three days of the festival. Guesses spanned from 1111 to 2600 (guessed by me). With all of the spam points games going on (read below) I knew it would be high, and I
definitely did not try to keep any spam wars going just to make sure we hit my guess. But by midnight of the last day of the festival, the total count reached
2670 posts, making yours truly the winner. With the first and second Summersend Festivals reaching 568 and 1069 posts, this year’s festival was a great success.
Spam Points is a simple spam game where in each post someone makes in the thread, they add a point to their score, though they are not allowed to double-post. The game tends to get very competitive, especially when two people are on at the same time, using each other to boost their own score. By the end of the festival, 657 posts had been made in the thread by the ten participants. The winner by a long shot – with 208 points – was
taulover, followed by Mathyland with 141 points.
Team Water Balloon Fight is very similar game to Spam Points, except people may group up into teams as well as deduct points from other teams. Twelve people joined the six teams, given names such as League of the Holy Potato, the Loco Cocos, Random Nobodies, and Some Team. By the end of the festival, almost 1300 posts had been made in the thread. Battles flared on and off as players (and even teams) worked together to increase their numbers and take down others’ then call brief truces. The war turned ugly as teams began to use special fonts and colors to highlight their team names with pride and deface their rivals’ team names by writing them in tiny font or with strikethroughs. At its worse, several people would post at the same time, causing them to have to go back and correct the scores. War-weariness set in as players grew exhausted with huge leaps in points and hits by sneak attacks from opportunistic teams. Towards the end, a shaky truce was drawn up between the People’s Team and Team Water Balloon Fight, the two teams who had soared to a distant lead. With a final score of 214 and a victory by two points, the People’s Team – consisting of
taulover, BraveSirRobin, and me – won. The Great Summersend Spam War of 2017 was truly an epic tale that will surely be told through the ages.
The Tavern Song Contest was put on by Wintermoot, who realized that while taverns across many games have their own tavern songs, Wintreath’s own Frostbite Tavern did not. The contest would then allow people to create their own song, be it original or based on an existing song, to enter for a chance at becoming the official song for our tavern. I created a song that merely switched some words to create a Frostbite Tavern version of the Green Dragon Song from
the Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King.
Elbbsas, on the other hand, created a longer, more original piece set to
Halfing Camp - Hear Ye All You Rascals by Mike Bridge, which she called
Raintrix Flight (named after a creature from the lore of Wintreath) and subsequently was voted as the winner.
Raintrix Flight
Cold is creeping at the door
But we keep it locked out there
Pick up your rum, assorted scum
We'll shout in disrepair!
We'll yodel to our mountains
Ride a raintrix to its call
And we’ll laugh at those below us
That are too scared they would fall
So salute all our fellows
Hyperion or Wintrean
Ignore the backstabs and the jokes
Of wolves that hunt the night
Let halls be filled with laughter
And lightning crashes falter
We ignore the frost without a cost
And we keep our spirits bright
CHORUS
The fire’s hot and so’s the pot
There’s tankards full of wine
So grab a mug of what you want
And chug until you’re blind!
The region’s full of acute chill
But we keep it out of mind
So gather now and here we vow
To drink till the fires die.
was put on in preparation for the new forum badge system that Wintermoot and I have been working on for the past few months and plan to kick off very soon. This contest was to create an official badge for this year’s Summersend Festival, which would be given to all those who participated in it. Three entries (seen below) were put forward – ranging from the seriously well-crafted to the shitpost quality – made by Hydra, taulover, and me, respectively. Ultimately, the first of the below, created by
Hydra, was voted as the winner.
Spyfall is an easy-to-learn forum game of bluffing, probing questions, clever answers, and suspicion. Usually in the game, one player is the Spy and has to try to figure out their location, while all other players try to figure out who is the Spy without giving away their location. Unfortunately for the players, I was the host and had a trick up my sleeve. Instead of making just one player the Spy and giving all other players different roles related to the location, I made
all eight of the players spies. With no actual location, each player pretended to know the location while at the same time trying to figure it out from the others’ answers. Players either gave incredibly vague or confident answers, which the other players then took and ran with as fact since they each thought they were the only Spy. In the end, Pengu guessed that the location was a cruise ship. Confusion ensued. Players began to announce that they were also spies, question others, and speculate that they were
all spies, until I ended their bewilderment and my amusement by telling them the truth.
Some of my favorite answers
What's your favorite food?
Red Mones: The food, it's absolutely delicious! Most of the time.
What's the most interesting thing about this place?
Mathyland (after a few answers by others about the view and the food): The view and the food; neither are at all what I'm used to.
What's your favorite building or structure?
Crushita: There comes a point where they all become the same.
is a forum game of strategy and chance that I adapted for Wintreath where players choose RPG classes with special abilities that they then use to fight each other to the death. At the start of each round, players are given a roll for initiative, which decides the combat order for the round. Players then send me their actions, which I then roll for damage and write out the results in graphic detail in-character. This match was a teams game with seven players spread among four teams. By the end, only one combatant stood remaining: the unassuming bard, Jenora Ellantor Magicbane the Arcane Trickster, played by
Aethelia.
Mage War is a brand new forum game inspired by Battleship that Wintermoot developed for Wintreath and debuted during the Summersend Festival where players are scattered randomly across a 30x30 grid board then take turns launching magical missiles around the board in hopes to kill each other and remain the last one standing. With eleven players and 900 grid points at the start, the game is still going strong a month later. Two players have since been killed off, and Wintermoot has implemented several new buffs spread around the board to speed up the game and add another layer of strategy and chance. Regardless, it seems to be a
hit among the players.
The Civilization V Game Night took place one night with four players. With so many conflicting schedules, it was difficult to find a time and day when several people could play, but eventually we got it started. With Gattoartico as the Inca, Crushita as Ethiopia, Wintermoot as Egypt, and me as Germany, we played on a tiny Pangaea plus map. As is common with Civilization V multiplayer, there were several connection issues, causing the then-current leader in points
Crushita to quit fairly early. He got an early lead with his religion, propelling his Ethiopia into first for the long majority of the game. With the very slow pace of the game (thanks to my slow laptop) Gattoartico also had to call it quits due to real-life obligations. Wintermoot and I metaphorically battled it out as we vied to steal first place from Crushita’s AI Ethiopia – Wintermoot by building cities, wonders, and great works, and I by building an army then capturing cities from Gattoartico’s AI Inca. By 3am ET (eleven hours after the start),
Wintermoot finally surpassed Crushita in points and ended the game as the victor. Only six turns later, I conquered the Inca, bringing me to first place, but the game was already over and decided. Woe is me.
